Related Articles

Long Island lawmakers are determined to stop Pink Floyd frontman and BDS activist Roger Waters from performing at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum this September…According to local legislators and Nassau County Attorney Carnell T. Foskey, because the coliseum is county-owned, the concert would violate local law 3-2016, which prohibits the county from doing business with any company participating in the economic boycott of Israel. This is the first time the law is being tested.

The son of a Holocaust survivor, Halperin was inspired to produce this film by his childhood friend, Dr. Charles Small. “Charles was aware my father was a Holocaust survivor. My dad hid in a cave from age 6 to age 13. His mother and sister died of starvation. Growing up, in my family you weren’t supposed to talk about any of this and just try to move forward,” recalled Halperin. “It was Dr. Small who woke me up. And in the course of my research and investigation, I’ve never come across a story more filled with hate, prejudice and misinformation than the vitriol that Roger Waters is spewing to the world.”

For years, the ex-Pink Floyd front man has been one of the most prominent voices in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. He has called for a full boycott of the Jewish state, and regularly urges artists and performers to cancel shows scheduled in Israel. In one of his most heated battles, Waters has taken on Radiohead and its lead singer Thom Yorke, for the band’s show in Tel Aviv slated for this week. Despite the pressure and media coverage, Yorke has refused to back down.

In an hour-long live video chat on Facebook Saturday night, musician Roger Waters compared the Israeli government to Nazi Germany, said there were no harsher regimes in the world – and then contradicted both himself and facts several times.

Charles Asher Small, the founder of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) at McGill University, told attendees at the Annual IDC Herzliya Conference that his NGO is working on the documentary, “Wish You Weren’t Here,” which examines contemporary antisemitism and the BDS movement. He points to Waters’s history of anti-Jewish imagery, including having a floating balloon in the form of a pig at his earlier concerts with a Star of David and dollar signs emblazoned on its body, and his comparisons of Israel to the Nazis. A new ISGAP website calls to boycott Waters’s concerts in reprisal. The website wedontneedrogerwaters.com asks people to sign a petition urging others to avoid his concerts in protest.

Waters himself is now the subject of a boycott campaign — and a documentary film made by award-winning filmmaker and New York Times bestselling author Ian Halperin…The son of a Holocaust survivor, Halperin was inspired to produce the film by his childhood friend, Dr. Charles Small. “Charles was aware my father was a Holocaust survivor. My dad hid in a cave from age 6 to age 13. His mother and sister died of starvation. Growing up in my family, you weren’t supposed to talk about any of this and just try to move forward,” recalled Halperin. “It was Dr. Small who woke me up. And in the course of my research and investigation, I’ve never come across a story more filled with hate, prejudice and misinformation than the vitriol that Roger Waters is spewing to the world.”

A group calling itself “We Don’t Need no Roger Waters” are calling for a boycott of musician Roger Waters. The Change.org petition wants a worldwide boycott of Waters until he renounces antisemitism and the unjust boycott of the State of Israel. The group has launched a website and Facebook page, and will be releasing a movie this summer.

“As scholars we’ve proved that there is a correlation between the boycott movement, antisemitism and the demonization of Israel,” [Dr. Charles Asher] Small said. “Now we want to take it one step further to reach the public to show them how dangerous this ideology is and how it’s being packaged in popular culture.”

The dialog (or lack thereof) didn’t go unnoticed by a group called “We Don’t Need No Roger Waters” who have put up a petition on change.org calling him out and for the ending of the BDS policy. In the petition wording, they also go on to point out Waters has “an extensive history of espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories, speaking about the “extraordinary” power of the “Jewish lobby” and going so far as to compare Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.”

Waters, who released his most recent solo album “Is This the Life We Really Want?” and is currently on the road with his Us + Them tour, has been targeted with a boycott by a group that accuses Waters of “espousing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.”

In its petition, the group, which calls itself We Don’t Need No Roger Waters — a play on the lyrics to Waters’ “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” — calls Waters “a leader of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign within the cultural arena.”

Yorke, the leader of Radiohead, speaks out for the first time about years of being attacked and threatened by Roger Waters for performing in Israel: “[I]t’s really upsetting that artists I respect think we are not capable of making a moral decision ourselves after all these years. They talk down to us and I just find it mind-boggling that they think they have the right to do that. It’s extraordinary… It’s such an extraordinary waste of energy. Energy that could be used in a more positive way.”

In an interview with the leading music magazine Billboard, Waters promotes his tour; attacks Bob Dylan and his music; and defends the validity of the BDS movement, while claiming that all assertions that BDS is antisemitic is due to the power of the “Israel lobby” - another Waters antisemitic trope. Waters claims that the BDS movement is not antisemitic, but a false claim promoted by the “Israel lobby” against anybody who criticizes policies of the Israeli government, while disregarding the fact that the BDS movement is rooted in immoral double standards and tactics of demonization and delegitimization, all of which are expressions of modern-day antisemitism.